I’m pretty sure that youth are the largest consumers of energy drinks, although I did just interview a 59-year-old executive who said he only recently gave up Red Bull. Either way, the results of an Australianstudy that made the news (the Fox News website) in July holds that mixing alcohol and energy drinks increases the urge to drink more afterward than if you drink alcohol alone. The danger, according to the study’s author, is that you can drink more than you meant to, and that, in turn, may mean you’re at greater risk of accidents and injuries. Actually, U.S. research showed similar results last year, the article said.

I wonder how many people this information will reach, and how many will do anything about it. Do we really need energy drinks, or is this another case of marketing something to young people that isn’t good for them?

Alcoholic Slushies on Instagram

Here’s more bad news related to today’s youth: alcoholic slushies are being sold on Instagram. They come in pretty colors and have sexy names like Dragonberry Colada and Volcanic Paradise. But a NY restaurant critic warned that they’re pure sugar and grain alcohol. The trend has started in NY; who knows if it will spread across the country? The slushies are known as Phrosties, and when a person imbibes too much, he or she ends up with “Phrost bite.”

These drinks, or slushies, cost $10 and are available for delivery to your door 24/7. HuffPost said they’re also rumored to be expanding to my state, NJ, as if we don’t already have enough trouble with the TV program Jersey Shore having glorified young people drinking to excess.

Wouldn’t you like to hear some good news? Read on.Youth Rally Against Drugs and Alcohol

In May, thousands of students in Florida marched in support of abstaining from drugs and alcohol. You’ve got to hand it to them, especially because in some schools it’s as if students like this are going against the tide. Not only in abstaining, but in being proud of doing so and not giving in to peer pressure. How refreshing, to read an article like this one for a change instead of reading about yet another drug overdose, as in the article written by a grieving father.

The writer’s son died after overdosing on heroin and alcohol, and the father is writing about the mail that kept arriving for his son afterward, for car insurance and a credit card, for example. Mail also came about an overdue tax bill, as well as about the son’s rewards account for his airline miles. The father wrote about how sad it is to get mail like this now that his son is gone, how “life has a continuity that disregards death.” The man tried a support group for grieving parents but didn’t return after the first meeting.

Joan has posted messages from several parents who have lost children, many of whom are just as sad as that writer but determined to tell their stories. As the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids ads in newspapers say, passing your story along may just help someone else.